Pragmata's villain is an AI, but director highlights a different angle

Artificial intelligence has long been a favored villain in fiction—HAL-9000, AUTO, GLaDOS and SHODAN among them. Pragmata adds another: IDUS, an AI program that has seized the moonbase where protagonists Hugh and Diana are stranded. It behaves less like a spiteful mastermind than like a white blood cell reacting to a foreign body.

Hugh Williams is the human lead in a high-tech suit, partnered with Diana, an android who looks like a little girl but can hack robots, destroy crystals and open paths through the base. Director Cho Yonghee says the game's concept was developed "back in like 2020," before the current surge of public attention on AI.

Cho says the team took a different tack by including an AI who is helpful as well as a hostile AI force.

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